[drtimbo]

Have just aquired a June 2008 TDi Sport manual car, which I love.
The V5 says the CO2 emissions for this are 156, which makes it Road Tax class G at £155 per annum - but the VW site indicates that the manual produces 148 of CO2, and should be class F (the automatic is class G). Have VW tweaked the engine in the past 2 years to reduce the CO2 emissions a tad - or is the information in my V5 incorrect, presumably due to an error on first registration? I'm sure someone will readily know the answer!

 

[Odie]

The change probably happened when they went from the Pumpe Duse TDI engine to the Common Rail TDI engine. Being a 2008 model, my guess is that you've possibly got the PD engine fitted which is to Euro 4 standard emissions. IIRC, the CR engine was fitted from 2009. I've got the CR engine fitted, which is to Euro 5 standard emissions, and my road fund licence is £125 p.a.

Also, in this day and age, manufacturers are trying to reduce the emissions, so even a car with the same basic engine during it's production run may have lower emissions as the production life goes on.

Rather than look at the VW website, which will tend to list the emissions for the current model year, if you can a look at the specifications in the 2008 brochure would be a better bet to get a more accurate idea of what band it should be in. Looking at the Parker's guide, it says that your car should be in band G and the DSG model for that year in band H (2009 onwards go to band F and band G respectively). Judging by all that, I hazard a guess that there hasn't been an error on your car's documentation at all.